Co-Presented With The Hollywood Foreign Press Association.

In early 1944, a number of movie stars went to 20th Century Fox Studios to see what a small group of foreign journalists, reporting from Hollywood back to their homelands, had found to be especially interesting and worthwhile during the turbulent preceding year. Lunch was served in the commissary, and all applauded when THE SONG OF BERNADETTE was declared best motion picture and Jennifer Jones and Paul Lukas took home the honors (in the form of scrolls) in the leading actress/actor categories. The journalists, all members of the Hollywood Foreign Press, decided that this would be a yearly event for the purpose of delivering an impartial view on motion pictures and their impact. In order not to be swayed and influenced by the powers in Hollywood--not even the Academy Award choices--it was important to them that they give their awards before the Oscars. The basic awards for motion picture, leading and supporting actors and actresses were supplemented with a director's award the second year, an award that became permanent. Since 1955, the Golden Globes have honored achievement in television as well as film. By 1962, the general public was invited to share in the celebration when KTTV in Los Angeles first televised the awards. The Golden Globes Awards, from the very first, were born out of a wish to create bridges between countries and cultures all around the globe and have, over the years, kept alive a feeling of celebration rather than competition.

We’re happy to be hosting this series of screenings devoted to the films and filmmakers nominated for the Golden Globe Best Foreign Language Film Awards. Five films will be spotlighted. Please also join us for the free Golden Globe Foreign Language Nominees Seminar, featuring all of the nominated filmmakers, at The Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood on Saturday, January 12 at 1:00 PM. For more information visit: www.goldenglobes.org and www.hfpa.org

THE KITE RUNNER (USA) 2007, 122 min., DreamWorks Pictures Sidney Kimmel Entertainment and Paramount Classics Participant Productions Present a Sidney Kimmel Entertainment and Parkes/Macdonald Production Distributed by Paramount Classics. Dir. Marc Forster. Based on one of the most acclaimed novels in recent memory, THE KITE RUNNER is a powerful tale of childhood friends, Amir and Hassan in a divided country on the verge of war. It’s a glorious afternoon in Kabul and the skies burst with the joy of an innocent kite fighting tournament. But in the aftermath of the day’s victory, one boy’s fearful act of betrayal will set a catastrophe in motion…. And an epic quest for redemption. Twenty years later, Amir returns to a perilous Afghanistan under the Talban’s tyrannical rule, to face the dark secrets that still haunt him and to take a daring chance to try to set things right. "…a film of exhilarating, redemptive humanity, conveying an enduring sense of hope." – Ann Hornaday, Washington Post

THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY (FRANCE AND USA), 2007, 112 min., A Kennedy/Marshall Company and Jon Kilik Production; Miramax/Paramount Vantage. Director Julian Schnabel (BEFORE NIGHT FALLS) won the Cannes Film Festival Best Director Award for his dramatization of the true story of bon vivant Elle magazine editor Jean-Dominique Bauby (Mathieu Amalric) who suffered a stroke that rendered him completely paralyzed with the exception of one eye, at the unlikely age of 42. With the real Bauby’s unapologetic sarcasm warding off any trace of sentimentality, the existence this privileged playboy took for granted… his women… his children… his 92-year old father (Max von Sydow)… his jet setting lifestyle is cross-examined by the active imagination inside the inanimate body in deftly delivered interior monologue by Amalric. With cinematography by Oscar Winner Janusz Kaminski. Scripted by Ronald Harwood. "…simultaneously uplifting and melancholy, suffused with an unexpected sense of possibility as much as the inevitable sense of loss..." -- Kenneth Turan, LA Times Director Julian Schnabel to introduce the screening.

LUST, CAUTION (TAIWAN), 2007, 157 min., Haishang Films; Focus Features. Academy Award winning director Ang Lee (BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON) returns with a startling erotic espionage thriller about the fate of an ordinary woman’s heart in 1942 Shanghai, in the throes of the WW II Japanese occupation of this Chinese city. Based on a short story by revered Chinese author Eileen Chang. With Tony Leung, Joan Chen, Tang Wei. Scripted by Wang Hui Ling and James Schamus. "One of the few honestly observant political films, totally devoid of retrospective feel-good propaganda, that I have seen in years, and its characters are thereby perceptively portrayed all the way through to the almost unbearably bitter end of the narrative." – Andrew Sarris, The New York Observer Ang Lee will not be in attendance as was previously announced.

AT THE EGYPTIAN THEATRE